Gary Boshoff

A weekend of highs and lows – that’s what it was.

It started on Thursday at the National Sports Indaba held by Sport and Recreation South Africa at the International Convention Centre in Durban. What was supposed to have been an important gathering to discuss the way forward for South African sport after the debacle in Beijing, was hijacked by a group of opportunists with one mission in mind: to get the Springbok banned as the national emblem for rugby.

This attempted “killing of the animal” as one delegate put it, came after a measured but accurate critique of the South African sport system by Cheryl Roberts, erstwhile National Sports Council sports activist. Ironically, speaker after speaker that responded to her presentation seemed to agree that her observations was accurate and spoke to the real challenges facing sport in this country, but then went on to waste much time and energy on a matter that was dealt with in great detail nearly two decades ago.

Since the Springbok was retained under a special dispensation brokered by then President Rholihlahla Mandela, we have spent the last 13 years rebuilding its image and changing the value system that it embodies. During this period a whole new generation of rugby players and supporters were born – all embracing and identifying with the Springbok as truly South African and representing the “Rainbow Nation” and the new set of values we as liberated South Africans aspire to. 

Some of us who have borne the brunt of the “Apartheid Springbok’s” history have managed to expropriate the Springbok and reinvent it as a vehicle for nation building and integration. The Springbok that we have today is not the same as the one that the Hannes Marais’s and Divan Serfontein’s wore – it means something completely different.

Once and for all

It was therefore indeed disappointing to hear stalwarts of the sport liberation struggle opting to deal with the symptoms of the (rugby) problem as opposed to the root causes there-of. The problems of SA Rugby is not the Springbok, it is the lack of accountable structures, the lack of transformational leadership and the lack of transparency on matters of national concern. It is these matters that require our activists’ attention and not an emblem that all of them have at one point worn proudly and which millions of South Africans have since embraced as their own.

So please, let’s just leave the Springbok alone once and for all and deal with the REAL issues!

The only high of the weekend was the qualification of the two top sides in this year’s Currie Cup competition, the Sharks and Bulls, for the final in Durban on October 25, 2008. Will the Sharks lift their first silverware in 12 years or will the Blue Bulls defy the odds yet again – at this stage everything points towards a Sharks victory. Notwithstanding this, there is nothing that the Bulls would like more than spoil the Sharks’ party again. All of this makes for a classic Currie Cup final.

On a sadder note, and definitely the other low of the weekend, was the notice of the sudden death of my fellow SuperSport rugby commentator, Chris Möller. On Saturday we did our last game together when the Sharks beat the Lions in the Currie Cup semi-final in Durban. He was always friendly and was never reluctant to share his vast rugby knowledge and experience as television and radio commentator with me. We, and I’m sure the Afrikaans viewers out there, will miss his unique, strong rugby voice that has for so long been associated with SuperSport’s rugby broadcasts. May he rest in peace.